TOPSY-TURVY

In widow's weeds, the bull, the sun,
the flower, the light bulb - it clings
to room 7 of Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,
Guernica*, the fizzled-out horse, the woman.
                                                           Ma'am
                                                           so long as I
                                                           assimilate themes
                                                           from a cubed root
                                                           suchlike 'whole pictures'
                                                           in gone-bad colour
                                                           you will remember;
                                                           gun-burst at railways
                                                           Jose on the bicycle,
                                                           rose-tinting an escape
                                                           in the blackness of your lace.

*Spanish Civil War Painting, Picasso

— Christopher Barnes